Trial and Error: The Wonder of You
by Aki1
Summary: Suzaku is depressed and Gino decides to remedy this at all costs, which promptly leads to a night of sushi, calligraphy, impromptu flying lessons, and more. But in the end, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones. // slight Gino/Suzu; one-shot


Disclaimer: _Code Geass_ – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. I own...practically nothing (sulks).

Author's Note: This piece is actually a side-story to my other fic, 'Trial and Error,' but it can definitely also work as a stand-alone. You don't need to have read that one to understand what's going on here, but if you really want the context, here it is: Bradley (the Knight of Ten) is pretty much being a jerk to Suzaku and the latter (after enduring several days' worth of physical assault and psychological torture) finally snaps and beats him up. Gino tries several things to cheer him up, one of which is taking him out for sushi, and that's...really all this fic is about: Gino, Suzaku, and sushi. (Well, almost.)

Warnings: ...Surprisingly, not much; this piece is very tame compared to its mother-story. Slight (unimportant) spoilers for the series and some canon side-material (light novels, sound episodes, etc.) Also, this fic is entirely in Gino's third-person POV, so expect gratuitous use of fragments, italics and thoughts within thoughts (like this) since I attempted to capture his carefree nature with a writing style that's more whimsical than what I usually do.

_For _**caraniente**_ and _**MithLuin **_who expressed support for this oneshot before it even began, and for _**Sam-Sam-Samedi**_ who requested more-Gino-in-the-mother-story but never quite got it. _

Enjoy the fic!

* * *

**Trial and Error**

**. : 4.25 – The Wonder of You : . **

Having a Knightmare that could transform into a jet had always been remarkably convenient, in countless ways. Naturally, some of them involved battle tactics (the Tristan in jet form was impossibly fast, and could cut through enemy defense lines right to headquarters before anyone could blink), while some did not.

This – the mobility to reach any part of Area 11 in little over an hour if he wanted – was one of the latter.

"Sushi!!" Gino declared as the automatic glass door slid to the right, allowing him to enter the restaurant. A kimono-clad woman bowed deeply from where she was standing behind a podium, but she welcomed him in Britannian. He returned both gesture and greeting (the former to the best of his abilities, at least) before practically skipping inside. And, "Sushi!!" he repeated for good measure, twirling around to face the boy behind him.

If Gino was excited and brimming with enthusiasm, Suzaku was all the way on the other end of the spectrum. "What?" he asked blankly, before sighing at the expectant, grinning look sent his way. "Yes. Sushi."

"Yay!" The Knight of Three felt a surge of triumph at this little victory. He was, after all, on a very important mission tonight: Suzaku was gloomy and depressed – well, at least, a lot more so than usual – and so he had taken it upon his shoulders to find a way to cheer the older Knight up no matter what it took.

And this was why they were currently standing at the entrance of a sushi bar just a bit outside the heart of the Tokyo settlement's commercial district. When Britannia had colonized Japan, it took the liberty of obliterating most of its traditions and sparing only those it found interesting, or pleasing. Apparently the first Viceroy of Area 11 had found himself rather fond of Japanese food, and so the art and nuances of Japanese cooking were deemed worthy of _not_ being shoved into a dusty corner of history and legend, (unlike...almost everything else).

It was a good thing too, he thought as he spun back around and inhaled. The place smelled divine, the lights were bright and all this lifted up his own mood even more. Despite the late hour – they had little more than an hour and a half till closing time – the place was still more than half-full, the space shared by nobles and students and corporate workers alike. The patrons were all Britannians though; the only Elevens he saw were the chefs in the center, and the servers milling about.

A part of him realized he didn't like the general direction that thought was headed, and so he extinguished it quite happily before it could grow into anything more unpleasant.

"Table or bar?" he called out then, only to see that Suzaku was already walking purposefully towards a table for two at the very corner of the restaurant. Gino pouted; he'd really wanted to sit at the bar, if only to be able to watch the chefs at work. But if this was what Suzaku wanted, he wouldn't deny him something so trivial; doing so would be counterproductive to his mission, after all. "Okay then!" he quipped, catching up in a heartbeat and sliding into a chair just as his companion had settled into the other one.

Honestly, it had been hard enough to get Suzaku to even agree to this at all. He didn't know when his mind had equated 'cheering up Suzaku' to 'taking Suzaku out for sushi,' but it had inexplicably seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time that he had suggested it just as soon as it was fully-formed in his head. Naturally the first attempt had been rejected. So had the second one, and the third, and so Gino had planted himself firmly outside the other Knight's quarters, cycling through various (and loud) combinations of 'Suzaku,' 'sushi,' and 'please' in the hallway, punctuating each word with a knock before the door finally hissed open and he won his first victory of the night.

(He'd invited Anya as well, but she'd declined, saying she had something else to do that night. Oh well. Maybe she wasn't too keen on Japanese food.)

A waitress arrived soon after that, handing them each a menu (and would they like some tea to start off?) He looked over the small, colorful illustrations accompanying each item and suddenly decided he was very, very hungry.

"Okay, some ground rules for tonight," he said as soon as the waitress bowed and walked away, giving them time to think over their orders. "No sulking. Happy thoughts only!" Because sushi and sulking did not mix, at least, not in a way he could imagine.

Suzaku shook his head slowly. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," he said in a low voice.

"Me neither!" Gino laughed. "But you need something to take your mind off what happened earlier, so..." And he extended his arm, sweeping it in a wide wave towards the center of the room: "Sushi!!"

His companion merely nodded in reply; it was a gesture of resignation, perhaps, but he couldn't be too sure, because he couldn't see his expression.

Those damned sunglasses were in the way.

"Take them off," he said with another pout.

"What?"

"Those." He jabbed a finger accusingly at the offending article. "It's night-time, and we're indoors." And he wanted to see his face, to keep track of how well his mission was going (or, how badly it was failing) but that was something he kept to himself. "It's ridiculous. Take them off."

"It's fine," Suzaku insisted, though not without some hesitation. "The lights are kind of bright anyway."

Gino deepened his pout, making sure the other boy knew full well that he saw clearly through his bullsh- (happy thoughts, he reminded himself at this point). He had to admit that when he first saw them, the sunglasses actually looked rather nice paired with the trenchcoat and jeans Suzaku had changed into. But now they were just annoying him, and so he waited until the time seemed right, then leaned forward and unceremoniously squeezed the bridge between thumb and forefinger before quickly yanking them off.

"G-Gino!" Suzaku sputtered, shock written all over his features.

"Much better," he decided with a chuckle, waving the sunglasses around before pocketing them with a smile. "_These_ are hereby confiscated for the rest of the night!"

The Knight of Seven really did have interesting eyes – they were so very green, and although they were normally set (deliberately, he was sure) in careful indifference, whenever they _did_ choose to show any other emotions they delivered richly. They could tell a story if their owner wanted them to, really.

(Like right now: one look at his eyes told him that Suzaku couldn't quite decide whether to get up and storm out of the restaurant, or leap over the table and tackle him to the floor to get his sunglasses back by force.)

But of course, this was _Suzaku_, so he ended up simply sighing as he rubbed his temples. "Fine. Just...don't sit on them, please."

Gino grinned widely as he gave his word.

He understood the other boy's agitation, though: they were in Area 11, after all, and to most of the populace Suzaku Kururugi was not quite welcome here. He found the thought saddening: to not be welcome in his own homeland, even after the million Elevens he had recently saved. Worse still was the fact that even as a Knight of the Rounds, Suzaku had yet to win the favor of the people who mattered in Britannia – yes, he knew how nobles' tongues wagged this way and that, and to a point it frustrated him as well.

But... "It'll be all right," he assured him, keeping the grin plastered on his face. "And besides, you're with me. They won't try anything."

Their waitress returned before Suzaku could protest, and he ended up ducking his head and staring at the menu, deftly hiding his eyes behind his hair.

Ah, yes, _food_: that was why they were here.

Despite his friendship with Suzaku, and the fact that he had been rather close to another, dearer Eleven in his youth (happy thoughts, _happy thoughts_, his mind screeched frantically) in the end he knew precious little about Japanese food. And so he began by picking off items that seemed familiar enough: he was not surprised to see the more 'Britannian-friendly' options – crabsticks with avocado and cucumber, salmon with cream cheese and cucumber, tempura-fried shrimp wrapped in rice – listed first, and so he went with several orders of those, and choices that seemed safe (things like 'tuna' and 'salmon' and 'mackerel' couldn't go wrong, right?) for now.

His stomach grumbled, and for a moment he was so caught up in fantasizing about food that he completely forgot to ask Suzaku what he wanted. But the other boy simply nodded when the waitress turned to him, agreeing with his choices and adding a couple more (_unagi _and _ebi_, if he heard correctly), and then the woman deposited a teapot at the center of their table before she was gone again.

Gino studied Suzaku just as intensely as the latter studied his menu. It was painfully obvious he was still trying to avoid eye contact with _everybody in the room_, but Gino wanted to think he himself was an exception to such trivial things. It wouldn't do to spend the entirety of dinner having to compete with a laminated sheet of cardboard for the boy's attention, and so the gears in his brain went right to work, turning and churning and spitting out the best solution to his current conundrum: conversation.

"So...did Bismarck say what the sanctions for beating up Bradley are gonna be?" And the moment he realized just what _exactly_ had left his lips, he wanted to bang his forehead against the table. He had taken Suzaku away from the base, away from the other Knights and all the way here in order to forget that incident, only to promptly bring it up anyway. Smooth.

But thankfully, Suzaku only shrugged, looking no more troubled than he already was (but really, that wasn't saying too much). "No sanctions. Just a letter on my permanent file."

"That's great, then!" he exclaimed, before catching himself. "Er, I mean...well as far as bad news goes, it's the best, right?" Letters on permanent files were just the military's way of placing a meek, gentle slap on the wrist – they meant nothing, and only cemented the fact that the Twelve could probably get away with murder, and maybe even nastier things, if they really wanted to.

So it was time for another attempt at conversation, his mind proclaimed. But his supposed conversationalist was still staring at the menu as though it were the most fascinating object in the entire world, and Gino decided that this blasted menu was his new obstacle-which-had-to-be-cleared.

"Suzakuuuu," he drawled. Leaning over as far as he could, he placed two fingers above the edge of the menu and peeked above it, hiding half of his face. "Did you want to order something else? We can still call the waitress back, you know."

Green eyes darted up, colored in confusion. "Hm? Oh, no, I was just..." And then he trailed off, fixing his gaze onto the table. "Never mind."

Gino tilted his head to the side. "Suzaku?"

Said boy shook his head quickly. "It's nothing."

"Suzaku?"

"It's...just something small. And silly. It doesn't even matter."

The Knight of Three waited patiently. "Suzaku?"

"...Gino?"

"Suuuuzakuuuuu," he practically sang, _almost_ loud enough for the next table to hear –

"They switched these two around," Suzaku said quickly, and almost stumbled over his words in his rush to put an end to this madness. "I think." Gino watched intently as he laid the menu flat on the table, pointing out two consecutive entries under a small, trivial column entitled 'how Elevens used to write it.' A gimmick, he mused, sadly as much as the existence of this entire sushi bar was. Of course it was good that Britannia even acknowledged these little cultural nuances at all, but there was something not-quite-pure about their intentions, as everything ended up for Britannians' amusement. As though this were all a novelty. "These are the characters for 'blue marlin'. Those are for 'swordfish'."

He scrutinized both entries, following the boy's finger. Both were written with three characters each, and the last two were identical. Not that he knew what any of it really meant, but if Suzaku was right then they had indeed apparently switched the two around. He wondered, briefly, why none of the Elevens who worked here ever brought it up (and then he remembered where he was, _when_ he was, and what exactly those implied, so a split second was all it took for that absurd thought to melt away into a chuckle).

Gino noticed he was veering dangerously away from happy-thought territory, and so remedied this at once: "Suzaku can still read Japanese!"

His gleeful proclamation was met with a hint of confusion. "Er...yes. Yes, I can."

He hated how the other boy was so reserved, his voice barely loud enough to be heard; he decided he would have to be enthusiastic enough for them both, then cross his fingers and pray some of it would rub off onto his companion. "That means Suzaku can _write_ in Japanese too, yes?" At the wary nod he received, he clapped his hands. "I want to see Suzaku write something!"

"Eh?" Mentally he chalked up another victory for himself as those bright green irises reflected surprise and bewilderment once more. Because anything that could break the Knight of Seven's poker face had to count as a victory, his logic had previously told him.

"I want to see Suzaku write something!"

"Yes, I heard you. But..." And now he was probably searching for an excuse in his head, something to buy him out of this ridiculously random request. "I don't have anything to write with..."

The feeble protest died a terrible, terrible death as Gino whipped out a pen from the pocket of his khaki shorts and swiped a napkin from the dispenser beside them. "Done and done!" he stated proudly. "Your problems are too easily solved."

Suzaku fiddled with the pen for much longer than was absolutely necessary. He glanced up several times while the napkin remained blank, his gaze silently questioning the younger Knight ('do I really _have_ to?') but he simply returned it with a toothy smile ('yes, you _have_ to'). And so Suzaku brought the tip of the pen down, soft scratching noises filling the air as he wrote before he turned the napkin over to Gino without a word.

He counted five characters there, and the black ink stood out clearly against the white of the napkin. The strokes were swift, angular, but he didn't know if this was just Suzaku's penmanship or if it was really how all Elevens wrote things. And... "What does it say?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"It's my name."

"Oooohhhh..." All of a sudden, the alien scratches on the napkin became that much more fascinating, and repaid close study. Upon close scrutiny he noticed that the first character seemed a lot more complex then the other four that followed, and so he guessed, "Su...z-a-k-u?" while running a finger along the characters in a line.

"Not quite," the older Knight replied, and covered the first two with a hand before correcting in a soft voice: "Su-za-ku."

"Ohhh." Fascinating. "Then what are those first two?"

If Gino had thought his companion's voice soft before, he didn't know _what _to call it now that it dropped several decibels and barely even made it to his ears: "Kururugi."

Ah, yes. Somebody had told him before that Elevens usually placed their surnames first, so this made perfect sense now that he remembered it. "Ooh! Can you write _my _name?" he asked eagerly, pointing to himself.

He didn't understand why it took so many more characters to spell 'Gino Weinberg' than 'Kururugi Suzaku.' But he supposed the Knight of Seven wasn't in the mood to discuss all the basic elements of Japanese writing with him tonight (just a guess). And so he asked instead, "Was it hard? Learning all of these characters?"

Suzaku shrugged. "Not really. Toh-...my instructor used to force me to do calligraphy exercises all the time. 'If you can't master the brush, you can't wield the sword'...or something along those lines."

Gino laughed. "He sounds like a pretty intense kind of guy."

"Yes. I suppose he was."

And Gino supposed he should have been happy to see the small, slightly wistful smile that tried valiantly to tug at the corner of the other boy's lips, but it seemed so sad and pained at the same time that he decided to end that train of thought and steer the conversation towards more pleasant grounds.

It really begged the question, though: what _would_ be safe to talk about, and what wouldn't? Suzaku was a very..._elusive _person, and the last thing he wanted was to bring up something he _thought _was innocent and harmless (Chess? Motorcycles? Tourist attractions of Area 11?) only to find out it brought back painful memories, or otherwise just pushed the boy further down his spiral of depression.

As it turned out, he was saved, quite literally, when their food arrived. And he exclaimed "Sushi!" for what was probably the fiftieth time that night, as Suzaku snapped his chopsticks and murmured something in Japanese that he didn't quite catch.

...Oh. _Oh._ This would be a problem. "Umm..." Gino scratched the back of his neck sheepishly as he stared at his own pair.

"Just use your hands," Suzaku told him, as though reading his mind. "Everyone else is doing it, and sushi is finger-food anyway."

'Everyone else' in the restaurant was Britannian after all, and a quick glance told him that most, if not all of these other patrons were just as clueless as he was when it came to using chopsticks. "But then why don't you – ?" And then he caught sight of the fresh bandages wrapped around both sets of knuckles, proof of his earlier misconduct. "Oh." Thinking quickly, he brightened: "Suzaku will just have to feed me then!"

Truth be told, he was starting to second-guess himself as he came up with all these ridiculous, inane ideas. But this one was well worth the expression of horror that took over (was that a _squeak?_) the boy's face, because a shocked Suzaku was just so cute that way. And, as far as his mission was concerned, an 'anything-else' Suzaku was better than a depressed, mopey Suzaku. "_What_?"

"Feed me," he insisted, leaning slightly forward and opening his mouth wide. Like a baby cuckoo. "Aaaahhhh...."

He decided it was high time to quit when he noticed several curious stares thrown his way, and all Suzaku did was pour tea for them both.

"Fine then," he conceded, sticking out his tongue. "I'll use my hands."

Gino decided he was too hungry to care either way, but he was almost sorry to disturb the artful arrangement of sushi on the platter that now occupied most of their table. There were colorful rolls arranged in neat little rows, some with the _nori_ on the outside while others had it on the inside – all grouped by type and separated by thin slivers of bamboo garnish. Surrounding those were mounds of rice topped with various things (he identified shrimp, at least; everything else was beyond him) lining the circumference of the platter.

It was...a lot more food than he'd expected. But, as long as it was for the greater good of making Suzaku happy, it was fine. And it wasn't as though he were a stranger to opulence anyway (happy thoughts, he reminded himself, and the images of outlandish balls, extravagant family dinners and dreary private tutoring sessions clicked off in his head just as fast as he could blink them away.)

Instead he watched Suzaku select a piece from the set and mirrored the choice with his fingers.

The rice was stickier than he'd imagined possible at first, but it was a pleasant kind of sticky. The slightly sour taste of the vinegar was complemented quite nicely by the cool, rich flavor of the... "Tuna?" he guessed, completely at random.

"Mackerel," Suzaku corrected, and Gino stared in awe as he turned the piece over, soaking the fish side in soy sauce, and flipped it again, using only those chopsticks and making it look so darn effortless as well. "Tuna's on the other side," was what he said before bringing the piece to his mouth and chewing slowly.

"Ahh," he nodded thoughtfully. To be completely honest, the mounds all looked very similar to him – smooth, pink slices laid on top of rice, no matter where he looked – but then again it wasn't as though he'd had much experience with raw fish to begin with. (Because whenever the elder Lord Weinberg _deigned _to dine on fish, it had always been smoked salmon with white wine, or grilled tuna belly drenched in the finest brandy from Area 20, or – )

"Try this."

He was never more grateful to have his thoughts interrupted than he was right about now. "Okay!" he agreed, immediately swiping up one of the pieces Suzaku had indicated. The fish (was that fish?) on top was warm, brownish instead of pink, and tasted of teriyaki when he popped it into his mouth; it was soft, as he expected it to be, and yet sweet and salty and affording a kind of slight resistance at the same time. "Delicious!" he said as soon as he could manage a swallow. "What was that?"

"Eel. I thought you might like it."

"I do!" he nodded in assent; he really did, and it was funny because as far as he could remember he'd never had eel before. "Suzaku knows me better than I thought."

The older boy smiled at that, but again it was a _quasi_-smile, tight and just barely there at all. His eyes remained untouched and seemed glazed over, as though his thoughts were suddenly elsewhere, and Gino sensed that wherever they were currently drifting, it was not a place of happy thoughts, and he needed to do something to remedy this.

...But while he still didn't know what exactly could make Suzaku happy, he had to at least (violently) yank him away from his course towards those decidedly _un_happy thoughts, and so he called their waitress and ordered more of that _u-na-gi _he'd just had.

"How many pieces, sir?"

"Thirty!"

Suzaku choked on his tea. "Gino!"

"Ooh, and some of these egg-sushi too," he added in afterthought, pointing at the bright yellow picture on the menu; if nothing else, they looked cute (_ta-ma-go_, he would learn later, was what they were called, or something like it).

So as the platters gradually emptied and the teapot slowly drained, they talked.

...Or rather, Gino talked and Suzaku answered questions, barely.

Regardless, the conversation was desultory – their Knightmares, _his_ schooling before Ashford, Cupid Day, Suzaku's cat. What that mound of green paste was called, and what it was for. The giant-pizza fiasco from the welcoming party – _that _never got old. Throughout all this he was grateful that he never quite saw the other boy's countenance degenerate into a scowl, or anything unpleasant like that; he never gave it the chance to, and whenever he saw hints of it he would either blurt out something inane ("Is it true that they used to make you cross-dress at the army before?") or distract him with idle conversation. Fortunately, he never ran out of things to talk about (because he was _Gino_), even if he knew he had to tread lightly like this all the time.

But on the other hand, no matter what he tried – all the ridiculous experiences he recounted, all the self-deprecating humor he unleashed – he couldn't _quite_ get the intended reaction. He knew it was foolhardy to expect a genuine laugh by now (because this was _Suzaku_, really) but he wasn't quite satisfied with what he _did_ evoke – distracted smile, raised eyebrows, incredulity. He wanted more because, as his inner logic told him, if anything-else Suzaku trumped depressed Suzaku, then happy Suzaku would trump anything-else Suzaku even more, and he wanted a happy Suzaku.

This was on his mind when they finally cleared the table (with a bit of difficulty) and paid for their meal. Predictably Suzaku insisted on paying for his half, so Gino promptly swiped the bill when it came and raised the arm that held it all the way above his head, laughing at the flustered reaction when he sang, "Suzaku can jump for it if he really wants to!" (In the end Gino just slapped down the plastic at the counter – his father had yet to cancel any of his five credit cards, despite all he had done – and grinned widely as Suzaku thanked him and sounded truly sincere, albeit embarrassed.)

"So where to now?" Gino asked, bounding out of the restaurant and practically skipping along the sidewalk. He didn't know if it was all the sushi, but he felt as though he had enough energy to go around Area 11 all night, work tomorrow be damned.

There was always room for dessert, he decided. Or maybe they could hit the arcades, try that shooting game Anya had told him about. Concert? Late-night movie? This part of the Tokyo settlement really came alive at night, or so he had heard, and the possibilities were endless – air hockey, bowling, fireworks...

"Back to base, I think?"

...and the option Suzaku _had_ to choose ended up deflating his previous enthusiasm in a heartbeat. "Home already?" he whined. "Reeeeally?"

His companion shrugged. "What else did you have in mind?"

"Many, many, _many_ things!" he exclaimed, flailing his arms in the air for emphasis. And he was about to rattle off a very long list of what exactly all those things were, but he noticed then (to his chagrin) the expression on the other Knight's face: eyes downcast, and _dead_.

His heart dropped in his stomach like a stone at the sight.

"I'm sorry Gino." And to his credit, the Knight of Seven really did sound apologetic when he said this. "I have an early morning tomorrow, and I'm kind of tired. But if you don't want to head back yet, I understand." He shrugged slightly. "Can you drop me off at the town center? I can take the train from there."

Gino pouted then, and this time it definitely wasn't _just _for the sake of being cute. "No, if you're going back then so am I."

Suzaku eyed him with an unreadable look. "No, I wouldn't want to – "

"If-you're-going-back-then-so-am-I," he repeated loudly, and with forced cheerfulness. Even though he knew Suzaku was more than capable of taking care of himself – armed or unarmed, Lancelot or no Lancelot – he didn't feel comfortable with the idea of leaving the other boy alone here, in Area 11, in the middle of the night. He just...he just didn't.

Suzaku fell into step beside him as they made their way to where they had hidden the Tristan. He was staring at the ground beneath his feet, lost in thought.

And when he saw this, Gino couldn't help but feel as though, somehow, he had failed.

* * *

The ride back 'home' started off with several minutes of silence, and silence did not sit well with Gino Weinberg. He took a glance at the clear glass in front of him and saw Suzaku staring off into space, knees hugged to his chest as he made the most of the cramped space behind the pilot's seat.

He sighed at the sight. He had tried everything he could think of so far, not holding back in the slightest, but...

Perhaps this was an unwinnable fight. Perhaps depression was just Suzaku's default setting by now, and he had been wired this way far too long for anyone to be able to do anything about it. He couldn't imagine such an existence though; Gino's own default setting was 'happy,' and it was a pretty good life this way. Sometimes certain things made him angry, or frustrated, or sad, but he never held those emotions for very long; he was slowly beginning to suspect that Suzaku was the exact opposite, that any and all happiness to the other boy was fleeting at best, blips on his radar and gone far too soon.

But in that case...

His frown gave way slowly to a grin.

In _that _case he realized that the best he could do was strive, as long as _he_ was around, to steal for his friend as many little moments of happiness as humanly possible. And so at this point in time Gino decided it was time to play his ace in the hole, the most _ludicrous_ idea he could have ever conceived, and had planned as a last resort:

"Do you want to have a whack at it?"

Green eyes blinked uncomprehendingly at him for several seconds, as though their owner were processing the question. "What?"

"The Tristan," Gino replied promptly, before turning back to the panel in front of him. "Besides the weapons, the controls are mostly the same: this one for direction, this one for – "

"Gino. Stop. No." Suzaku shook his head furiously. "I'm not piloting your Tristan, thank you very much."

"Well that's too bad then," the younger Knight shrugged carelessly, steering the craft sharply due northwest until they were visibly on a collision course with a very tall hotel building. And then he leaned back, carelessly propping his feet onto the instrument panel and lacing his hands behind his head. "All that rice has made me sleepy," he declared, pointedly ignoring the sputtered cries that ensued. "I think I'll just – "

"Gino!!" There was a sudden commotion behind him as Suzaku stood up suddenly, banging his head on the ceiling by accident; he smirked at the string of Japanese curses he was rather familiar with by now. "What the hell – ?!"

" – lie back for awhile..." he drawled, actually daring to shut his eyes.

The Knight of Three wasn't worried in the slightest. After all, this was _Suzaku_, and because this was _Suzaku_, he felt the nose of the jet very soon angling upward, until they were almost vertical. And when he cracked open an eye he saw, to his amusement, that the craft was now shooting up, almost parallel to the tinted glass walls of the hotel.

"That was – I don't even – don't _ever _do that again!" Suzaku scolded him then, but his voice and features were dominated by sheer shock and that took all the anger (if there was any to begin with) out of his tone. "What if I hadn't – ?"

"I rather like this position!" he interrupted. In his mad rush to grab the controllers Suzaku had inevitably ended up caging the younger Knight between his arms, and was straining over his shoulder to see where they were going. In retrospect, it was kind of sad that this was the closest he had ever gotten to an actual hug from the Knight of Seven, but he was perfectly happy with it anyway.

There was much indignant stuttering before he finally got a reply; honestly, teasing Suzaku shouldn't have been this much _fun_. "Don't try to change the subject! That was so incredibly _reckless_ – "

"Oh like _you _aren't," he sang out without thinking, only realizing his faux pas when he saw those eyes darken ever so slightly. Ah, he was treading dangerous ground, he realized, even though anybody with eyes and brains, really, would testify just _how_ reckless the pilot of the Lancelot was during battles; it was almost as though he didn't even fear death itself, but he supposed he had no right to_ go there_. "I mean...look at this," he amended, easing into a genuine laugh. "Look at _you_! You're a natural!"

The Tristan had just cleared the top of the hotel, and was slowly eased back into a horizontal position as they flew. Lights dotted the Tokyo settlement beneath, and it was a breathtaking sight that never got old and could never be appreciated from inside a normal Knightmare.

"Can you take over now?" the quiet request shattered into his musings. "This position is kind of...awkward."

You don't like hugging me?, he wanted to retort, but bit it back with a smile. The other boy was probably referring to the strain in his arms, or something _boring_ like that anyway, and he was pretty sure Suzaku had had to put up with more than his usual quota of mindless teasing for the day. In that case... "On the contrary, I think you've gotten so good at this, I'll let _you_ take over!"

"...I'm going to let go."

Lies. "And _I'm_ going to get out of the chair!" he called the bluff gaily, ducking his head underneath an arm and then proceeding to do just that.

"G-_Gino_!!!"

It took a lot of awkward fumbling, swearing, and mutual clumsiness that would probably leave bruises on them both, but within thirty seconds the Knight of Three was grinning quite proudly from his perch behind the pilot's seat (and damn, but it _was_ rather crowded back here, especially for his tall frame) which currently contained a very reluctant Suzaku.

"This is insane," the latter finally mumbled as soon as he'd managed to collect his wits, shaking his head in disbelief. "This is _illegal_. You and I are both going to get – "

"A finger wagged at us, maybe, and nothing more," Gino finished for him lazily, offering a cocky grin. "And that's only if anyone ever finds out. _I'm_ certainly not going to report this; are you?"

The other boy's hands were tense on the controllers, but he shook his head.

"Then there's nothing to worry about!" he declared then. "Really, Suzaku – we've been following the rules all our lives," (in more ways than one), "so now that we're in a position where the rules don't really matter...I think we've earned the right to enjoy it, wouldn't you say?"

"Even so," the other boy responded. "We're soldiers. We took oaths. We have responsibilities to the people we protect, and we can't...we can't just ignore them whenever we feel like it."

"True," he conceded with a shrug. "But right now, when we're up here, when were _miles_ away from the nearest person who would yell at us, who would actually care...at least _right now_, does any of that even matter?"

They flew over the Area in relative silence for awhile, both of them enjoying the view as the lights of the settlement gradually gave way to dark expanses of grass in the countryside, lit sporadically by randomly-scattered flares of yellow. A thick line of black snaking through traced out a river, and he could barely see where it emptied into the sea.

This was Suzaku's homeland, and it was nice to see that some parts of it were still beautiful, seemingly untouched by the never-ending war that had plagued it since the occupation began.

"I see. This is why you love flying so much," Suzaku finally picked up the conversation, and both his tone and eyes had softened considerably. "This freedom."

"Exactly!" Gino exclaimed, immensely pleased that his friend _finally got it_. And that meant, "You feel it too, right?"

The Knight of Seven didn't reply, but the smile on his lips and the brightness in his eyes – a kind of latent, boyish giddiness re-awakened and barely kept in check – was something he'd never seen on the other's face before, and it was all the answer he needed.

And so, for the rest of the trip, Gino taught Suzaku how to _fly_:dipping over and under the clouds, rounding imaginary bends in the sky. Diving as far and as fast as he dared, only to recover at the very last second. Swooping down low over the sea and tilting the jet so that the wing kissed the waters, coating it with a fine spray. There were no enemies to engage up here, no missiles to fire and no casualties to report, no gunfire to avoid and, best of all, no orders to follow.

(And he couldn't help but think, as he felt the familiar rush of independence and finally – for the first time – heard Suzaku _laugh_, that maybe _this_ was how eighteen-year-olds were really meant to live.)

* * *

"Suzaku had fun," Gino declared then, as they finally entered the Knights' residential complex. It was well past midnight, he noted as he stifled a yawn; for a trip that was supposed to take just a bit over an hour, they'd remained airborne for almost three. He'd have to remember to change the energy filler on the Tristan before going out in the morning, and he'd need to wipe the miles from the log and get coffee and...

"Yes. That was incredible."

...And all of those were trivial, because he had accomplished what he set out to do, and Suzaku was _smiling_.

They both paused as they reached the door to Gino's room. "We should do that again sometime, yes?"

Suzaku tilted his head. "The sushi, or – ?"

"_All _of it!" And in his enthusiasm the Knight of Three had pulled the other boy into a hug from behind, as he was wont to do, before he realized what he was doing. "Whatever makes Suzaku happy, because if Suzaku is happy then I'm happy too!"

His mind didn't even fully register that his arms had wrapped themselves around slight shoulders until he felt a hand clasping one of his wrists. Hmm, perhaps he had gone too far for tonight, and he expected that hand to yank his arm away and allow its owner to slip out of his grasp, as per usual. Well, that was all right, he mused; after all, Suzaku didn't seem to be a very huggy person (one would think he'd have ceased his attempts when he first realized this, in fact), and so he relaxed his hold, ready to let go –

But the hold tightened ever so slightly when he tried to move his arms away. And that was when he realized just what _exactly_ that gesture meant.

"Suzaku..." he breathed, stunned into a rare silence. He wrapped his arms more snugly around the smaller boy, resting his head on a shoulder and offering an unseen smile. He couldn't see the older Knight's face from this angle, which made it hard to gauge what exactly was going on right now. But... "Hey. You okay?"

There was maybe half a second of hesitation before he received a nod, but that was all it took.

So he stayed like that for about a minute, with Suzaku caged in his arms and nothing but closed doors and the shadows in the hallway to witness this moment. His smile widened despite himself when he felt the other boy lean back into the touch, a far cry from the cold, sometimes brusque rejections these spontaneous hugs usually brought out.

When Suzaku finally lifted his head he decided it was time to pull away. So he did, and the Knight of Seven turned around, features carefully schooled into a neutral expression (although this time, the look in his eyes betrayed him.)

"Thanks," he murmured quietly at the floor.

"No problem!" Gino said cheerfully. "You looked like you could use one." He couldn't tell what the other boy was feeling when he finally met his gaze, but he was able to pre-empt his next words: "Yes, yes, I know, not a word to anyone else about this. My lips are sealed."

And before he could turn away, he placed his hands firmly over those still-warm shoulders.

"Suzaku," he said, in a tone belying more seriousness than he had ever felt the whole night. "If you ever need another one – I'm just four doors away. Okay? Or if I'm not around, Anya's even closer; heck, she's right next door to you." That thrice-damned poker face his friend was so good at wearing wavered then, just a little bit. "We're here for you. Okay?"

Perhaps any other person would have responded to that declaration with a warm smile, or words of thanks, or promises to return the sentiment. But, (once again) this was _Suzaku_, so he was just inexplicably confused. "Why?" left his lips in a barely audible whisper.

Gino shook his head. "Because we want to!" he proclaimed, grinning from ear to ear. Because even though it seemed (strangely) as though he would welcome it, Suzaku didn't deserve to have the whole world against him. "Because everyone deserves someone...or something." And he laughed at that, and laughed even more when he saw his efforts rewarded with a small smile.

Because if everyone else had to be cruel to Suzaku, then he would be kind. And this had already been decided, long ago.

"Okay," he replied after a long silence, accepting their unspoken contract. He did not smile then; if anything, he looked a little lost, but both of them knew he understood.

"Go to bed," Gino ordered playfully, ruffling his hair, "and tomorrow you can go back to squirming your way out of my hugs all over again. But!" He fished the sunglasses out of his pocket, returning them to their owner with a cheeky grin. "Remember what we talked about here."

There were no fond goodnights exchanged between them, nor any promises about when they would meet again to repeat tonight's little endeavor, if ever. But Gino waited in the hallway, watching until the door to the Knight of Seven's quarters shut quietly behind him, before he retreated into his own room.

Therein lay his hope, then, that Suzaku would eventually break out of his self-designed prison of depression and misery: the boy had built a mountain around him, but today Gino Weinberg resolved to break it down, no matter how long it took, and with an ice-pick if need be. He didn't know what happened in the past to break the Knight of Seven so, but as long as nothing too terrible happened to him _now_, Gino would coax him out little by little and slowly, gradually, (hopefully) bring out the side of him he had seen tonight, flying loop-de-loops without a care in the world.

Satisfied with this plan, Gino yawned widely before unceremoniously plopping face-down onto his bed. His stomach was heavy and he had maybe four hours until his alarm would ring. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

**.: fin :.**

* * *

And even more Author's Notes:

I just wrote 7,000+ words of Gino and Suzaku lolling around. I'm...not quite sure how to feel about myself.

Just to be on the safe side, some points (I think) worth clarifying:

- I'm aware the actual sushi-segment was littered with Japanese words. Off the top of my head, _nori_ is the seaweed-wrapper, _unagi_ is eel, _ebi _is shrimp. I know there were some others, but those were explained in-context...that, or I completely forgot about them.

- According to the light novels, Gino is/was ridiculously rich. And he fell in love with his family's Eleven maid, something his father vehemently refused to accept. In retaliation, Gino ran away from home and joined the military, eventually becoming Knight of Three.

- 'Kururugi Suzaku' is written in five characters; 'Gino Weinberg' (Jino Vainberugu) is written in nine. I'm not exactly sure why (author is not even remotely Japanese), but it has something to do with 'foreign name = totally different set of characters / way of writing.'

This fic is actually pretty late, as I had hoped to get it out before the 21st. That turned out to be...a lot of wishful thinking, and truth be told a majority of this was written on a 5-hour train ride from Ottawa to Mississauga, where I will be spending the holidays. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews? Yes, please and thank you! =)


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